


A Combined Effort

by yuffiehighwind



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen, Memory Alteration, Multiple Personalities, Season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:07:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28443654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuffiehighwind/pseuds/yuffiehighwind
Summary: After the first Curse breaks, Dr. Frankenstein meets Dr. Whale.
Kudos: 2





	A Combined Effort

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place during and uses dialogue from early Season 2, up through S2E5, “The Doctor,” and references S2E12, “In the Name of the Brother.” 
> 
> I’ve written [a lot of fanfiction](https://archiveofourown.org/series/30855) about Jefferson and his identity crisis - back in 2012/13 and during my current flurry of inspiration - so this is heavily influenced by conversations Jefferson has had with himself in my fanfics. The only reason I can picture Victor doing this is because of that out-of-nowhere question he asks David about dating the nuns. Then Victor tries to leave town, despite so passionately trying to hurt Regina in the previous episode. I think the in-universe reason would be a tug-of-war in Victor’s head right after the Curse breaks. (I figure the real-life reason is whoever wrote the nun joke forgot how serious the character was behaving before.) This is what I think that would sound like.
> 
> The title comes from the following quote.
> 
> “Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I've ever known.”  
> -Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

When the Curse breaks, Dr. Victor Frankenstein's first thought is, _I want to go home,_ and his first instinct is to kill Regina for taking him away.

But Dr. Whale just wants to make the best of a bad situation. 

"Hey, let me ask you something," he says to David, who is rushing past, quite obviously on his way to doing something more important. But Victor is still reeling from the news that Storybrooke's citizens are stuck here, and this gives Whale the chance to get a word in.

"Are the nuns still nuns, or can they, you know, date? Don't say it's me asking."

David responds he doesn't know, then leaves, and Victor admonishes Whale for saying something so stupid. 

"Hey," Whale says sheepishly to a former nun walking by, and he hopes she hadn't heard him. They were always the only women off limits, and there were some cute ones he wanted to ask out, but making that obvious is not the smoothest move. These thoughts make Victor want to take off his (their) shoes and hit Whale over the head with them. Only hours ago, Victor's focus was punishing Regina. 

"Dr. Whale," someone says to him, "We need your help over here." Dating nuns and killing queens needs to wait, because any pleasure Whale wants to give or pain Victor wants to inflict take a backseat to doing his job.

* * *

Victor seethes with anger, restrained from hurting Regina, uncertain if his land or his brother still exist. He's been dropped into a community full of people who don't know him. Victor's not sure he wants them to ever know. 

"You're not my Prince," he snaps at David, who then asks him who he is. "That's my business," Victor replies, and storms off. That's when Whale starts doing some hard thinking, because even though Victor knows - he **_knows_ ** \- that Whale isn't real and was created by magic, he _feels_ real. 

Dr. Whale's life also feels preferable to Victor's - the anguished scientist who spent fifteen years trying to atone for getting his brother and father killed. Serving guardian to a monster with crowds banging on his own door. Too selfish to put the creature out of his misery, desperate to find an alternative way to restore him to his old self. No, the fifteen years since Victor had last seen Regina weren't easy, but at least he had been home. 

The dwarves announce the town line erases memories, and Victor considers doing the same thing to himself. But it's like suicide, in a way, this magic. Victor's been himself for a _day_ , and he's already giving up? He pictures telling someone - maybe one of those nuns Whale wants to date - his true name is Frankenstein, and Whale's knowledge of the story washes over him. Who would ever love Frankenstein? Most people aren't familiar with the original book or know that the "monster" was the doctor all along, but knowing that is worse, isn't it? That's much worse. His family's name was meant to stand for life.

"We need to eat something," Victor says, feeling light-headed, and Whale almost replies out loud, then remembers that one of them isn't real, and the one who isn't real is himself.

"What?" Whale whispers, leaving Granny’s Diner, because mumbling to himself among the chaos outside is preferable to mumbling to himself in the middle of a crowded restaurant. Maybe he can pretend he's on a cell phone. Do cell phones still work? 

"Why'd you say 'we?'" Whale asks Victor suspiciously, or maybe Victor is asking Whale. "I thought the curse was broken."

"I still feel like I'm you," not-Victor replies. "It's hard to describe."

"It's not difficult at all," not-Whale says. "You're my past, I'm my...more recent past. We're the same person."

"That makes sense," Victor replies, to Whale's relief. "We're not two people, we're just…"

"...two experiences. Two times in our life," Whale finishes. 

"Right." After a beat, Victor asks, "Then why do I still feel like I'm _you?"_

"What can I say?" Whale replies. "I'm a doctor, not a psychiatrist."

* * *

"I'm leaving," Archie Hopper says, quietly, because Ruby just directed new patients his way that he is now carefully avoiding. "I'm crossing the town line and going back to Portland."

"You're not from Portland," Victor tells him. "You probably don't even have a social security card."

Hopper holds it up. The curse fabricated everything. 

"I can't do this," Hopper says, and this confession surprises Whale but doesn't surprise Victor. 

But Whale acts more sympathetic. Whale's a lot better at interacting with living people than Victor ever was. Victor's not sure his life as Whale was a punishment at all - the fabricated man seems to have somehow inherited all Victor's best and worst qualities. He's social while Victor was withdrawn, and he's even more talented in medicine. The urge to corrupt nuns is a trait Victor couldn’t have predicted, though. He finds Whale's treatment of women distasteful. Either live a life with one love, or with none at all. Sleeping around is an aspect of the Land Without Magic that Victor can do without.

"You can come too," Hopper says, putting luggage in the trunk of his car and closing it. "If you want."

Victor thinks of his responsibilities back home, but also how much easier his life would be if he forgot home existed.

"The choice is yours," Hopper says. "But I've gotta go before anyone notices."

"If you're sure that's what you want," Whale says, and fleeing Victor's past is sounding more tempting by the second. 

* * *

Whale stops by his house to pick up his stuff, throws bare necessities in his car, and follows a surprising number of vehicles to the town border.

David swerves his truck into the middle of the road to stop them. Hopper demands he let them all leave. David gives an inspiring speech and Victor listens with a slight smile on his face. Everybody turns around and goes back to Storybrooke. 

"We'll figure this out," Victor reassures Whale. " ** _I_ **will figure this out." 

"So am I real or not real, or what?" Whale asks him bitterly. 

"Does it really matter?" Victor replies. 

"It kinda does," Whale says, and he's too pissed off to care if people hear them talking. "What Regina did to all our minds is so much worse than ripping us from our lands."

"Is it, though?" Victor asks. "Aren't you just more-recent me, and I'm past you? I thought that's what we decided."

"You need to cool it with the plural pronouns," Whale says. "That's just...making it so much worse." After a beat, he says, "You should start by telling people your real name."

"You know why I can't," Victor says. 

"Because they won't believe you?" Whale huffs a laugh. "I'm sure Snow White and the Evil Queen can suspend their disbelief."

"They won't understand," Victor says. 

"You don't have to tell anybody anything. I'm just saying, the first step to feeling like yourself is using your true name," says Whale. "Unless...unless you _want_ to be me."

Whale says it uncertainly, almost disbelievingly. It's not like committing magical mental suicide on the border and more like having a secret identity. At least until Victor is comfortable sharing it.

Victor scoffs. "And pretend to be you for the rest of my life?"

"Not the rest of your life," Whale replies. "Just for now."

Victor sighs. "Okay. For now."

Then Victor finds out Regina's curse didn't destroy his land, and thinks of a way he can convince her to send him home. Or, if things go as wrong as they did with his brother, it would be a cruel, clever manner of revenge. 

"You reanimated a body?" the doctor treating his severed arm asks skeptically. "I knew magic was real," she says, "but I didn't think it could do _that._ Who do you think you are? Dr. Frankenstein?"

"Yes," Victor soberly replies. "Yes, I am."


End file.
